Longships captain, on the starboard bow,
with an eye to the sunset.
The back of my hand blooded on black slab. Sunlit now,
as it always was. Fear remained looking down,
to be cherished above all.

We took a photo for two girls.
Who didn’t know, and didn’t care, where they were.
Unlike me. I knew where I was most of the time,
and I cared all of the time.

High above the sea we watched for hours, as the rain swept in.
Down at the beach the gulls, waves, counterpoint.
To risk a pathway sought from memory. The cape
a good hope, sight lines to the sacred land, to
Aire point, and Biggles flies again undone.

At the end of it all, sitting as part of the scene.
Just to be men not boys for once.
(you could tell by how little beer we drank.)
A cave, a chance in the rain. It was here,
that feeling returned, belonging, waiting, expectant.

No matter how much I’ve tried to shake it off,
I’m secured and humbled, in a spiritual stasis.
Worship stones, ancient, calling.
The menhir encompasses my lost direction.
The cure stone lies widdershins.
Sanctuary from a distant land.

Strong the old watch, white in the grey sky.
Thick walls shoal back the time, to frame this eternal view.
The old workings, now just picture fodder.
Meaning is lost, the dirty hard work and men,
used beyond their natural limit.

Where the shore ended they carried on out.
As the pebbles above their head sang of mortality.
To make the old rounds, time after time, in the eternal rain.
Regroup, the local and foreign, older and the wiser.
There is so much here to be remembered, and more to be found.

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